herbarium and museum reveal two historic natural history collections that are culturally and scientifically significant nationally and internationally but are little known outside a specialist world. The herbarium collection is held at the Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney, and the Macleay collection is now housed in the Chau Chak Wing museum at Sydney University.
Both books are co-authored with Ashley Hay, the current editor of Griffith Review, former literary editor of The Bulletin, and a prize-winning author who has published three novels (A Hundred Small Lessons, 2018, The Railwayman's Wife, 2014 and The Body in the Clouds, 2010) and four books of narrative non-fiction. Her work has won several awards, including the 2013 Colin Roderick Prize and the People's Choice Award in the 2014 NSW Premier's Prize.
In herbarium Ashley’s essays, explore the role of collectors and collections, nineteenth century society in Australia and the particular role of women in collecting. In museum she focuses on the Macleay family, who earnestly believed they could collect one of everything in the world and worked tirelessly developing their collections to achieve this end. She examines their significance in terms of science and society in nineteenth century Australia.
The scientific and historic notes, written by the relevant scientists and curators from each institution, present interesting historic and scientific information about each specimen or artefact showcased in the book.
There are four visual chapters in each book, focusing on the specimens, which are at the heart of the collection. This approach gives the reader a number of ways of accessing the collection- via the essays and stories around the specimens, the scientific or historic information relating to each plant or object, and the images of the specimens or artefacts themselves.
I spent years researching and photographing the collections – herbarium spanned three years and museum was a similar period of time. This long lead-time gave me the opportunity to think about the collections and how to present the very varied types of specimens, objects, and artefacts. Although I tried to photograph as much collection material that I possibly could, at the point of publication, there are only one hundred image pages in the book. While the final image selection is my interpretation of the collection it also reflects the scientific and curatorial input of the institutions and the focus of the essays.
museum - background
Alexander Macleay arrived as Colonial Secretary in 1826, and he and his son William Sharp Macleay, and his nephew William John Macleay were all members of the “great and the good” of Sydney society. Citizens of the Enlightenment, interested in science, scholarship and the arts. Alexander Macleay built Elizabeth Bay House, the finest house in the colony, situated on a 54 acre estate consisting of flower and botanic gardens as well as fruit and kitchen gardens, once world famous not only for the Australian natives but for the exotics imported from China, India, South America and the Cape of Good Hope.
Collections like gardens were a popular and indispensable accessory for a gentleman. Initially it was enough just to collect and amass objects, but taste is ever changing, and by the time of the Enlightenment, science became the paramount raison d’etre for building a collection rather than mere accumulation for its own sake. A collection was transformed from an aesthetic assembly into the search for order and classification.
Alexander Macleay collected, purchased and traded insects at such a rate that by the time he came to New South Wales his privately owned collection was one of the largest in the world. The Macleay collection houses more than 10,000 type specimens (the specimen from which all others are named) with more than 600,000 specimens in the insect collection, the earliest specimen dating from 1756, making it the largest and most scientifically significant part of the collection.
Nineteenth century Entomology was concerned with taxonomy and identifying and looking for similarities and difference between species. As well as showing individual spectacular specimens I also wanted to show the original pinning and display. There are very few opportunities now days to see specimens in the context of eighteenth and nineteenth century science and aesthetics.
The Macleays genuinely believed that they could collect one of everything in the world and William Sharp Macleay who was also the British ambassador to Cuba before arriving in Australia studied with Charles Darwin at Cambridge and had his own theory of evolution. All three generations of Macleays collected exotics from dealers, and purchased from local Sydney Emporiums of which there were a number (Ward’s Emporium was probably the most famous in Sydney), they also employed their own private collectors, and organised their own expeditions.
Not surprisingly given their belief about collecting the sheer diversity and scope of the Macleay collection is staggering. There are 16,000 shells in the collection, which represents a minor part of the collection. Given there are 100 image pages in the book, not more than a double page could be allocated to the shells. The shell box was constructed based on the one in the Macquarie chest held in the State Library and was a way of showcasing a number of shells over two pages and again referencing nineteenth century display.
The chapter titled Expedition references the Chevet Expedition in 1875 to New Guinea and the islands of the Torres Strait, the first Australian scientific expedition to a foreign country. The expedition consisted of six zoological and botanical collectors as well as William John Macleay. This small scientific party collected about 1,000 specimens of birds; 800 fish; numerous reptiles including 2 alligators; a very large collection of marine molluscs, corals and sea fans, as well as land shells from New Guinea; insects were collected from Cape York, Darnley Island, and New Guinea.
One of the most striking dichotomies when you access the collection is how many species unique to Australia and the Pacific region have been ‘discovered’ and named and at the same time how much has disappeared in the country’s brief history since Phillip’s arrival in 1788.
“Collecting is a form of union. The collector is acknowledging. He is adding. He is learning. He is noting. The true collector is in the grip not of what is collected but of collecting.”
Susan Sontag, The Volcano Lover.
Three generations of a family, who contributed a considerable amount of money, time and effort to build a collection. They helped establish the Australian museum, were on the board of the Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney, built the Macleay museum at Sydney University to house their vast collection which they similarly donated to the University and left significant funds to support curatorial staff into the future.
